To sleep, perchance to dream
by loginandgetresults
Summary: My AHS exchange gift fic. Won Moderator's Choice award! I am so excited! :


**To sleep: perchance to dream**

When she is asleep, I can come in. She can't sense me now, yell at me, _scream _at me to go away. Her little hands are curled up near her face, rose petal lips parted. I get right up on the edge of the bed and sit down on the floor. Then I can talk to her. I tell her what I've been thinking about, what I saw around the house that day, who was fighting with who…I've been doing this for as long as I can remember now. Sometimes she almost answers back, making little noises or expressions on her sweet face.

It's better than nothing at all.

I can whisper the things I want to tell her in her ear, move the long silky hair away and breathe to her about how much I love her, how much I miss and need her. I tell her it's me that makes her shift and call out in her dreams, cry in her sleep. Me who tells her what I would do to her, for her. It's me. It is always me.

When I'm tired and talked out, and I am sure she's deeply asleep, I might hold her hand. Maybe put my hand on her arm.

It's the best I can do.

I've learned to know when she starts to wake. Some shift in her breathing, fluttering lids. That's when I go. I stop at the door and catch the first moments of her consciousness, hoping to see some glimmer of what I left her with the night before. But I never do. Just one long, last look at my baby, my angel. Until the next night.

I go back to the basement. Not because I feel like I belong there and I've made it my dungeon, but hardly anyone else goes down there and usually no one bothers me. Sometimes I talk to Travis but his 'bro-ski'-ness is a little too much in large doses. He's nice enough, though, and he serves as a good source of sympathy about her situation. He got handed the shitty end of the stick as well, so he gets it. Even if he pines for my mom, which kind of makes me want to barf. Hayden lurks around now and again, and since she's relatively intelligent I listen to her, but I don't say much. I don't want to encourage her. I can't bear all the noise and bullshit so I stay away from all the kids, and it's obvious I won't be getting any Father's Day cards from anyone, ha ha. Moira gives me withering looks when she comes down to the freezer for whatever family is stopping at "Go" and losing a lot of money until someone upstairs wigs them out and they run like the Boston Marathon down the street into the night. Sometimes it's funny and I'll sit outside to watch them cramming themselves into a car or a cab or something that will get them the fuck and the hell and the _fucking hell_ away from here. Then the movers come again and you can fuck with them a little but they don't scare easily. They go in places like this all the time. They're like the cops and paramedics of the manual labor world: they _see_ shit and they _know_ shit. _Then_ the realtor comes and you couldn't scare her with a fright wig and banging a metal spoon on a pot lid. Once she showed the place on Halloween when everyone else was gone and I dragged a rusty tow chain I found in the garage around in the basement. It was great. People running down the street, her chasing them in high heels and waving her clipboard. I heard her say "Oh, shit," and go back to her big-ass Expedition to pick them up down the block. I told _her_ about it that night after she fell asleep. She had been out all day and was tired, but I stayed here. What the hell am I going out to look for when my whole world is here in that bedroom every night? I even got a little smile from her, closed eyes moving back and forth under her lids. She is precious when she sleeps. She is precious to me all the time.

But pranking now and again and pissing Marcy off isn't my life. My life is from the time she tires out and I hear her getting ready for bed until she stirs back to action in the morning. The rest of the time I am just going through the motions. _My_ forever.

I get down a lot. Hell, most of the time. Once in a while I go and sit with her body, or what's left of it. It was what I fell in love with first, and I just don't feel right leaving it alone forever. At least I got a grave and a headstone. She only has me. Her jawbone has separated from the skull and I can see a filling in her tooth. There's a few strands of her hair that the mice haven't taken away to weave their nests. It's just the husk of her, though. I'm not as emotionally attached to it as I once was. The best part of her is upstairs, and I can never wait until dark.

It's so freaking boring now days. Mom and Dad have sequestered themselves in a wing of the house with her little brother. Look, I never made a secret about the fact that I wasn't completely down with the whole sibling thing when it first came up all those years ago. Now that he's here and he's a baby _forever_… Let's just say I don't hang out there much.

I've begun to sleep a lot. _A lot_.

The dreams I have are a comfort. Every night, he is with me there, and everything is okay. We talk. The dreams are so strange…we talk about what happened that day, we laugh about the latest spats and catfights in the house, we compare ideas and make bets on how long the family-of-the-week will stay. He tells me what he thinks about everything and then I listen without a word of my own. I hang on everything he says. It doesn't matter what he says. It's just hearing his voice so vividly, and that's the best sound I have heard in all these years since I did what I thought was right and made him go away. Just before the dream ends, he tells me how much he still loves me. Sometimes he tells me about how his heart broke that night and I sob, remembering the hope on his face when I confessed my love for him and then the raw ripping hurt when I told him to go away.

Go away. Two little words that served no purpose other than to satisfy the status quo who was circling and mewling for blood from the supposed household demon. Someone needs to give me a big economy-size break. It was just another case of Let's Blame the Teenager when shit goes down in this place. The fucking scapegoat. If I had been here, it probably would have been me doing some grimy shit to get in trouble. This place makes the living dark and decrepit. If you're already kind of dark, well then all the more so. And God knows he lived here a hell of a lot longer than I did. The little freak in the basement almost got him when he was only about three or four. Jesus, whiny-ass Nora told me that. She drifts upstairs sometimes to bitch about the furniture being vulgar and sniff and attempt to reign and deign. Whatever. Once, though, I was in a rather charitable mood and I heard her out. She told me what he promised her and even though I had to go throw up after she left, I finally understood.

And I felt guilty as Hell for what I had done.

I mean, at least my young childhood was okay. What if I had a dead-drunk mother that killed myr dad (Yeah, I found _that_ out when the old guy cruised me once. I'd been wondering who he was…) then lied and said he deserted us, _me specifically, _because I kept messing up when I was supposed to be so perfect? What if I was the only supposedly 'normal' one when my siblings were cursed with physical disfigurements? And the pressure that put on me?

What if I had grown up in _this_ place, with _that_ mother?

Would I forgive me?

I told my mom that once, when we both had been drinking. (What's she going to say? I might be left with a sixteen year old body but I'm well past the legal drinking age now.) Regardless, we sat there and drank a whole lot of this sweet red wine that gave me a mother fucker of a headache but I found my way around to kind of asking if she forgave him and said I had been toying with the idea.

And you know what she fucking said?

She said "That's nice." No shit. _That's nice_.

Fucking _what_?

And then she says "Forgive who for what?"

She _forgot_? She actually did not fucking remember it, or him? At all?

Well, bullshit god damn it to hell.

Maybe that's a part of _their_ being dead. Maybe they only remember the happy things, if they _have_ happy things to recall. Maybe they decide what will be a part of their history now. Maybe they're more evolved than us or something. Fuck it. Most of us here have nothing to make happy memories with. We cling to what was our life before, because it's all _we've_ got. She has the 'new' baby, and Dad. They have made a _new_ life, or whatever this is. I have my own memories. And I live in them like comfortable old clothes.

So when she said that I stood up fast and made the chair I was sitting in fall back on the floor, and oh, the baby brother has to start yelling again and that was my cue to get out. I went back up to my room and I lay down on the floor where I knew his life ended. I lay there and concentrated and thought and brought him into my mind as clearly as I could. And then I cried: for hours, until I was exhausted and broken and fragmented. I must have gone to sleep because I dreamt he was kneeling beside me, holding my face in his hands and crying with me, telling me I was all that was good and light and not to ever, _ever_ cry because he loved me. That I was the only person outside of his ill-fated siblings that he ever loved, and ever would. And when I woke up and it wasn't real. I cried again, until I was sore and stiff from lying on the hard wood. I couldn't be there anymore, so I crept down to the office and lay on the new sofa where dad's old one used to stand. A place where I had seen him so many times, but not a place filled with such emotionally charged memories. Just a place I peeped through a crack in the doorway and felt that little teenage crackle of sexual energy, thinking "Damn, he's cute."

I wish I knew where he went. Nora didn't mention him other than to tell her story of emotional blackmailing. No one seems to know where people go when you tell them to go away. I know Beau came back after that one time in the attic but...his brother hasn't. Was my 'go away' stronger or worse because I was so mad and hurt and out of control?

Did he just say "fuck it" and blow this Popsicle stand somehow?

I can't figure out how to get to him. How to talk to him. What if he doesn't exist anymore for me to even find? That is more than I can bear and I won't think about it. I have to push things like that into a little room in the back of my head and lock it up or I'll go mad.

So today I was thinking how I had dreamt about him last night, as per, and I wondered about trying to talk to him in my dream. What did they call that stuff? Lucid dreaming, where you can control what you dream? Even if it isn't real, it was worth a shot to feel a little better in the morning. A new memory to play over and over in my head.

It's better than nothing at all.

I found an unattended computer and looked it up on the internet. There was this whole website on how to do it, so I read it and thought what the hell? Sure, I'd be sad and cry when I woke up, but it was better than nothing at all.

It's the best I can do.

I had trouble going to sleep that night thinking about it. I watched the moon change position and move its beams across the floor, until it finally illuminated the place where he died and that was the last I remembered.

When I at last heard her breathing deep and even and sleeping it was late, much later than usual. That concerned me a little since she had become such a creature of habit that you could practically set a clock by her. Never mind, though. My prized time would be shorter, I supposed. When I sat down beside the bed she had her little hands up by her face again, and I just could not stop myself from taking them in mine. They were warm and soft and so _her_ that it was like an electric current that ran through me. I told her how one of those damn twins threw a can at a guy walking a dog and flipped him out today. How I saw birds making a nest in the eves over the garage, and how Hayden had talked Travis into bopping her on the kitchen table while the family ate breakfast at the bar that morning. And that was tasteless and gauche and I would never have done that with _her_ unless she asked me nicely. I stole her a pack of smokes from some middle school wanna-be tough who left them unattended on the back porch when he came to visit that kid who was currently residing in what was the guest room in my day. I put them on the dresser. How it's hell keeping her in cigarettes when the FOTW (family of the week) doesn't smoke, and did she think it was just coincidence they just kept coming from somewhere? Out of the ether?

I had my chin lying on the bed in front of her face, so close I could feel her warm breath blow my hair a little. I told her I loved her. Loved her so much.

"I love you too."

A whisper.

At first, I thought I imagined it. Then I thought I was finally at the point where I was hallucinating and that was the end of my last shred of sanity, fluttering away. But I tested the waters, and asked "What?"

She said it again.

This was the biggest thing to happen to me in so long, I almost fell over where I was squatting beside her. I recovered and steadied myself. Did I dare go on? If she woke up there would be screaming and theatrics and hysterics. But my heart won that battle and I asked her something else.

"Then, or now? Did you love me then or now?"

She sighed and shifted, looked annoyed. "Of course now, dummy! What other time would it be?" In a sleepy, slow, far-away voice, but saying words that gave me more hope than I ventured to wish for in years. "I loved you then _and_ now. I've never stopped."

I felt the hollow in my throat beating so hard with my heart that it almost hurt.

"Do you forgive me?"

A look of consternation. "No one remembers it. She doesn't even remember _you_."

Bullshit. That couldn't be true. Still…

"But you?"

Sighing. "I don't feel mad anymore. Nothing from then matters anymore..."

"Why are you talking to me?"

"I miss you."

I rolled my head back, stared wildly at the ceiling.

"Then why haven't you called me?" I was getting frantic.

"Because I don't know where you are!" Frustration in her voice, a soft whine and her face crumpled a little.

"I'm here!" I whispered urgently. I was afraid, but not so much that I would not take this dangerous opportunity to get through to her. "I'm right here!"

More troubled expressions. "I don't see you. Don't joke with me! I can't see you!"

I held her hands tighter, running the risk of awakening her. "I'm right here, baby! Open your eyes! Open your eyes!"

And just then, the lashes fluttered and winked, and for the first time in longer than I cared to remember, I was looking into her open amber eyes.

"Oh shit!" he whispered in abject terror. The looking glass had broken and here it was: afterlife reality. Run? Crawl under the bed? Smother her? No, no, no, that was the old him. Can't do those things anymore. Decidedly frowned upon, although the urge did hit now and again when certain people refused to just shut the fuck up.

She started, sat up, and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. The sudden light hurt his eyes and he blinked. She was staring into them, the illumination from the bulb cutting through the dark and making them clear brown, so clear she could finally see the pupils surrounded by smoky topaz irises. It sent her long-still heart skittering and scattering across her breast.

"Don't," was all he managed to breathe at first. Then: "Don't yell."

"Why shouldn't I? What the hell?" Her hand ran through her hair, making it fall in shimmers around her shoulders and he abruptly thought how beautiful that looked.

"I didn't mean…I wasn't going to…It's just…" Aw, hell, there was nothing to say. You got caught creeping, now take your punishment.

"It's okay." She said, and her hand went to his face.

Contact. After years of sitting by windows and sitting in basements and sitting and sitting and longing and aching. Daring fate, afraid, he turned his face into the palm and kissed it. Her eyes closed and a single tear escaped down her cheek, skating silently down to the corner of her mouth.

"I've been dreaming about you talking to me for years now." She said quietly.

"I've been talking to you for years now."

"So it's been real? All of it?" she seemed incredulous.

"I can't swear everything you dream was from me, but I've damn sure been here talking every night."

And she thought that was sweet, and she thought that yes, it was real, all of it.

"Why did all of this have to happen?" she whispered like a silver breeze.

"Everything is my fault…" he replied, just as softly.

"You were just a part of a chain, Tate. A chain none of us could prevent from continuing. There's something evil here that thrives on awfulness, and it has so much power that it makes us that way. You didn't have any control over what happened."

"How can you say that? What I did was…"

"Unforgivable. And you wanted me to do it anyway, even though you knew."

He looked down at his knees, gripping the side of the bed until the sheets pulled and creased. "Yes."

"You know, my mother doesn't even remember it anymore."

He looked back up, startled. "What?"

"I told her once, when we were drunk…" she even smiled at bit at the memory. " I said I had been thinking about forgiving you after Nora told me everything about it…"

A little sharp intake of breath, like the night she told him she loved him and then killed him again. And again. And again.

"And she said something so bizarre…she said 'forgive what?" She moved her hand to his own, clutching there at the sheets. "I didn't believe her. But I thought about it, for a long time. And it occurred to me that she has a new life in this death…and I don't."

He watched her, blinking dark eyes. Neither did he.

"So, it was like…so, what did I have to say now? It is almost like it didn't happen…isn't it?" She searched his face.

He sighed. "No, it isn't. It never can be."

Her face changed and softened. "If I ever needed proof that you had changed," she said quietly. "That was it. You never would have admitted that before. Never."

"I'm afraid," he said, staring into the side of the bed. "I'm afraid that you won't feel that way again someday. I did terrible, awful things. Things that left people who are living right now still in pain. I know that now. I did things that were unforgivable."

"Maybe in your world," she replied. "But not in mine."

"I started out with the sole intention to do something that I knew could destroy your family. I did that thing, and then it just kept getting bigger and worse and…I'm a monster."

"And then you fell in love."

He sniffled. "Yes."

"And so did I. It changed us both. And you are not the first person to make mistakes in their past. We both have. And you're not an anything but a boy that got mixed up in something you had no power over; someone with faults. You found someone you thought loved you and you did anything to keep that love. Don't you ever, _ever_ say that you're a monster again. I don't care what went on in your past anymore."

"Why are you being so good to me?" Now he was the one who was unconvinced.

"Because I love you," she said simply.

He caught a sob. "You shouldn't. You should not."

"That's not for you to decide. I won't change how I feel about you because I know you by heart, not by what you choose to let other people see." Her grip on his hand tightened. "I have one more thing I want to ask you."

He nodded, mute.

"Do you really still love me? I dream you tell me that every night."

His eyes overflowed. "Yes! I do tell you every night. I said it every night I came up here and talked to you while you slept. I knew if you were asleep, you'd never tell me to go away. I guess you were listening with your heart. These past years I've felt like it's grown to the point where I can't contain it, like it has to spill out everywhere. Yes, I still love you!"

Her eyes closed with a sigh and she rubbed them with her thumb and forefinger. "Then stop torturing yourself with this," she said. "If you still want to be with me, if you still love me, there's nothing to do but forget about what happened and go on."

"Of course I still want to be with you! I have never wanted anything more. Is that what you want? I mean, you're willing to move past it?"

She sighed, lifting his hand and holding it against her breast to feel her heart beating. "This still belongs to you. You never took it back."

"I don't deserve you," he whispered, a tear slipping from his eye. "I'm not what you deserve, but if you'll let me try, I'll do anything in my power to make you happy. I'm not proud. Just stay with me. I can't stand being away from you for ten minutes, let alone the rest of whatever this is..."

She bent over from her cross-legged position on the bed, pulling him forward. "Never again," she said, leaning into him. "Never."

His eyes went to her lips. "You promise?"

She took his other hand and laid it again on her heart. "I cross my heart," she said into his opening mouth.

Oh, it had been too long since she kissed this man she adored. His skin smelled like sunlight and the beach and his mouth was honeysuckle dew from the flower. She felt his arms go around her and his hands dropped to the flare of her hips, pulling them closer against his abdomen. Everything rushed back, the way he felt, the satin of his hair, his gentle, quiet voice, the way his face showed every feeling and emotion. Violet had almost forgotten it all in her grief, even though she had played every memory over and over in her mind for so long.

He pulled away only a fraction of an inch and said against her lips "You make me alive. I love you, Violet. Without you, I'm just existing. I don't want to go back…" He broke off, and his eyes flooded with tears and the panic he had been harboring since that day rose up again and struck. "Don't go away again. Don't come back to just make me die all over again."

"No," she sighed, holding his face between her hands. "I need you so much. I want to be with you so badly."

He pulled her against him, hands going behind her back to curl long fingers over shoulders and position her body against his own. "Violet," he said, his nose against her own. "I adore you. I'm sorry…I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I was fucked up when you met me. I'm sorry I overwhelmed you and was so damn insecure and needy. I didn't want to lose you, and I wound up making it happen." A tear splashed on her cheek from his eyes.

"Tate, don't cry. I love you, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here as long as you want me to be." She was smoothing back his crazy, curly mop of blonde, stringing the spirals between her fingers.

"Well," he whispered, "that's forever." He laced his fingers between hers.

The moon was streaking in the windows that looked out over the lawn, casting a gentle light into the room. It was hard to shake the horrible fear and doom that had been their constant companions for the past years, and each hesitated for long moments, afraid to go on. Finally, she spoke.

"It's okay. It's all gonna be okay now." He crawled up onto the bed and clasped around her waist. Moving her hair from her shoulder and kissing the side of her neck, a shudder passed through her and he said though her hair "I missed you so much. You can't imagine."

"Oh, I think I can," she breathed, turning to face him.

Damn it, she thought when he kissed her again. He was so gentle, soft and sensuous and urgent and needing at the same time. A warming of her very core began deep inside.

They sat stood there a long time, him just holding her. Tate swayed back and forth, that same little dance he did, as if he were rocking a baby. Violet pulled her face away and bumped her nose against his; once, twice… a little signal. He kissed her with a sigh, a little peck at first, then another, and another, and finally his soft tongue slide in her mouth again and she moaned around it. Her heart was hammering away in her breast, and when she placed her hand on his chest she could feel the same mad thudding there as well. She turned her eyes upward and met his quiet brown ones, full of love and stillness and the rediscovered peace she so desperately needed back. She reached to kiss him again.

"Tate," she breathed into his mouth, "please. Oh, please..."

"You say things like that…and I can't stand it." He replied shakily.

Her palm slipped under his shirt and around his smooth stomach and flank, and then tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. "Then don't stand it, just do it."

He pulled back to look at her under heavy lids. "You sure?"

Violet rose to her knees. "Absolutely sure. I want you so much…"

He sighed. "You are the only one I ever wanted. I missed making love with you so badly." He drove back into her mouth again, trying to hold all of her at once by bending his height around her small frame. Her hands went to his hair, pulling it through her fingers until the curls straightened and bounced back when they reached the ends. She felt the old soft quilt under her hands and smoothly he laid her back. He was tall and he covered her completely and it felt safe and warm there, protected. Secure. He began peppering her neck with kisses and speaking into her neck.

"God, I've wanted you. It's been hell. I missed how you smell, I missed," he nipped her neck "how you taste."

Violet gathered handfuls of the tee shirt he wore and with some assistance on his part, pulled it over his head. "Violet," he whispered, "I'm serious. Forever. I don't care if it's been 80 years. I know, right now. You are the only one."

"Okay," she whispered. "I know, too."

He pulled her top over her head and she worked her toes around the waistband of his jeans and pushed them as far as she could before he loosened the buttons that finally freed him. Her shorts wound up flying somewhere into the room and they were left with only the thin fabric of her panties between them. Tate rested on his elbows and lowered his face to her again, almost touching.

"I love you, Violet," he sighed into her mouth. "Can we please start over again?"

The way he said her name was beautiful, lyrical. The things he said made her chest feel as if it would burst. She nodded, unable to speak for she was too emotional to get the words past her heart in her throat. His hand traveled down to her hip and he pushed her underwear down.

A few more movements and he rubbed himself against her.

"Tell me," his eyes were closed, and he was breathing hard.

"Tell you what, baby?"

"Tell me you want me to."

She reached her hand up to cup his cheek. "I want you inside of me, Tate. I love you."

He turned his face to kiss her palm again and entered her, making her hiss.

"Did that hurt?" Worry in this deep eyes. "It's been so long…I should have been more careful."

"No baby. It feels good..." she settled her hips against the mattress, making him wince and sigh again.

"You feel so good," he said softly. 'It's so right to be with you." He kissed her, slow and sweet, his body sinking against her own. "My dreams came true."

Violet sobbed suddenly, realizing that her own dreams were true as well. His hand rested on her cheek. "Don't cry baby. I belong to you. It's perfect again."

"Tate," she breathed. "I love you. Oh God, I love you so much."

His thumb traced her cheekbone. "Not as much as I love you."

He was against her ear, his bent neck under her hand, talking to her, driving me wild.

"You're everything I ever wanted, all I ever need…" His breath hitched while he spoke. She arched into his smooth hips and met him. "You're so warm and soft and perfect…" His voice was an ache.

The feeling was so powerful, so much that Violet wanted to extend this beyond mere minutes and she forced him over to straddle his hips and slow him down, splaying her fingers across his chest. She could watch his face now, sandy curls fanning out across the stark white sheets, a few tendrils stuck to his forehead. His eyes were open wide, staring at her face like some beatific vision.

"You're so gorgeous," he said now, reaching up to her breasts as she swung her long hair and closed off everything except for the two of them. Their own private world where suicide and anxiety and depression and murder and even death could not enter. His graceful hands moved to her hips and he never pressed or pulled, allowing her to control. In a few minutes he gripped them tight to still her.

"Don't. Don't move," he gasped. "Wait."

"I have to," Violet groaned, dipping to his ear.

"Please…not yet." He closed his eyes and squinted. Violet remained motionless as he caught his breath and got in control. She watched, enthralled as his face battled willpower with rapture. The struggle to be still was almost beyond her. At last he loosened his grip and opened his eyes to smile.

"Thank you. It's been a while." There was no need to explain; she understood. She reached her hand to his face and traced the deep line of the dimple on his cheek.

"I don't want anything else except for you to smile like that every day, forever," she said, choking on her emotions. His eyes softened and he slid his hands down her legs, rubbing the tops of her thighs.

"All those regrets and mistakes are in the past now. We found each other again. Nothing else matters anymore."

Violet braced her arms against his shoulders and rose up to come down slowly, watching his eyes close and his face grimace in pleasure. She tried to take things slowly, to extend this bliss they had created by our united bodies. Even so, within minutes she was close to breaking, her legs trembling from the building intensity. Tate rolled her over and thrust hard into her body because he knew she wanted that force and the pressure of his body above her own. They moved the way lovers who know each other's bodies so well do, each giving what the other needed and taking as much as dared in return.

"Do you love me?" he breathed. "Tell me, Violet."

"I love you," she answered, gasping. "I love you more than I can ever say." He burrowed into her, pulling her body down by the shoulders, onto him. She strained against him, so near she was insane with it. Making soft noises against his mouth, she vaulted against his hips until her whole body began to shake from tension and desire.

"I need to," Violet gasped into his lips. "Please don't stop. I need to so bad…"

"Relax, baby. Just let me do it. Let it happen." That soft husky voice, so uniquely his, helped her be at ease. "Be still, angel."

The words he spoke did it. The spiral started to unwind within me and the first pulses shut her eyes and arched her head back so far that Tate's hand in her hair pulled, but she didn't care. She was going to pieces again, with him. Only Tate.

"Oh baby, her sweet girl," he crooned in her ear. "Let go…" he ground against her, a hand on her hip to help him exert the perfect pressure.

Violet did. She let the lonely months of weeping and longing go, the memory of times like this that made her long for him and sob into her pillow night after night. The times she dared look for him around the place. The ache she felt from being separated from this boy she loved and needed so badly…she let go. Wave after wave hit, made her whimper and jerk and struggle against him for every last tremor she could savor. Tears crept from the corners of her tightly closed eyes.

He pulled away from her and watched her face, with his calm, kind eyes. When she had sufficiently returned to her senses and was catching her breath he spoke.

"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I wish there was some other way to describe it. The way you looked just now was beyond... You were exquisite." He kissed her and slid gently back inside, groaning. "God, you're so wet," he muttered into her neck. "You're still throbbing inside…it feels incredible."

His plunges and rocking were growing more urgent, bringing him to his own climax, and she wanted him to feel it as completely as her own. Violet locked her ankles in the small of his back and held him in, wrapped her arms around him, and wished for it to be so. He was growing slick from the sweat of his efforts, but she refused to release him. She wanted to be entirely there, to stare into the face of pure joy and bliss and love him as much as he loved her. His long forearms snaked under hers and he held her head in his hands, foreheads one another.

"I'm yours, Tate. You're the only man I ever want inside of me."

"I'm gonna come," he groaned, making butterflies flutter in her abdomen. A low guttural sound began deep in his throat, and she wound her arms around his neck. He forced himself to slow down, to draw it out and make it last.

The sound broke free into a gentle cry, his fists in her hair, winding and clenching and he was open mouthed against her lips, gasping and breathing into me the air that gave him life. She inhaled him, and accepted him as completely as she could, forcing him so hard into her body that it hurt for a split second but she stayed with him through the throes.

"…I love you…I love you…God, I love you…" with each stroke, choked onto her lips. He pressed hard into her and held himself there, looking absolutely lost in the feeling. His curls were trembling in a halo, whole face slack with ecstasy.

Then he was lying, his face buried in her hair as he caught his breath and their pulses slowed. One sweet hand reached out and twined fingers through hers, flexing and compressing it as he rode the final waves out. She moved slightly and he gripped the hand tight.

"No," his voice in her ear said. "Wait a minute. Don't go away …I just need…to hang onto you a little longer." I could feel his flat abdomen panting against mine.

"I'm not going anywhere." She reached over into his hair, ridiculously trying to tame the wild mess of curls with her hand.

"I feel like…like I want to live in your body with you. See everything the way you do, feel what you feel." He rose on his elbow and the look on his face was honest and heartfelt. "It's the closest I can be to you. Just let me stay here." He took a deep breath. "That was so… I thought I was going black out."

"Me too, but that's how it always was with you," Violet spoke softly. "No one else could ever make me feel the things you do. You're my miracle."

He kissed the tip of her nose. "You're the miracle maker. You are the only reason I am here right now."

The words punched her, let her know how close she had come without even knowing it. She felt frightened when I thought of him gone away. Just…dead.

"Tate, will you hold me? I need you to hold me." I was curling into a little ball, wanting to be tiny and tuck herself away within him. He reluctantly pulled from her and lay down against her back, drawing her head under his chin like he did when they used to sleep together, curving around me to maximize the contact between them. He placed a kiss on her crown.

They were quiet for a while. His chest stuck to her back with the damp of their sweat.

"What are you thinking about, Violet?" he said into her hair, still a little breathless.

"I'm the one afraid, now," she whispered.

"Of what?"

"Of what happened to us. Losing you. Of you being…. I'm afraid of everything outside of this room and you loving me and holding me."

Violet felt him hold his breath a second, then exhale slowly, blowing strands of her hair around. She turned to face him. "You'll never lose me again, I promise. But I'm sorry you got damaged goods when you got me. It isn't fair to you. I promise I will do everything I can to keep from…losing it again. It's a monster. It's like…like a big, dark, tangled ball inside of me. Some days it hangs out in the back of my head and leaves me alone. Some days it comes up and tries to control me. I can't talk about it, I've already said too much. If I talk about it, it makes it seem okay and it seems normal and that's not right." He closed his eyes and she knew he was communing with it, that place in his head that was not the same as the rest of them, and it made him beautiful in a way and everything she was not and made her love him even more. Her beautiful, crazy boy. He _was_ beautiful: gorgeous in his insanity, wonderful and he would never be the same if he wasn't. It frightened her because she could not understand it and she never would and that was okay. Beauty is not perfect and normal. It is so many things that we can't quite understand. And that is _why_ it is beauty.

"That sounds so weird to say," he broke her from her thoughts.

"No," she replied, soft.

"Well it sounds weird to me and it's my head. I wish I could be better for you."

"There is nothing on this earth that is better for me than you, Tate Langdon. There never will be anything better for me than you."

They stayed that way until at last she snuggled back against him and deeper into her pillow, falling asleep. He recognized the familiar cadence of her breath, the relaxation of her body as she slipped deeper and deeper into the velvet of unconsciousness. Quietly, carefully, he leaned over her and spoke.

"Violet…do you love me?"

She stirred gently. "Forever and ever."

He moved back onto the pillows and fell asleep for the first time in years.


End file.
